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Social Media 3.0: Key Takeaways from the BMA Chicago Event

Kim Lucio

Kim Lucio

Today, BMA Chicago hosted the panel discussion "Social Media 3.0," which took a look at the latest updates from YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Former BMA President Michael Krauss moderated the panel, which included Kristin MacGregor, head of YouTube for the B2B vertical at Google, Justin Levy, senior social communications manager at Citrix Online, Brent Hill, director of Central region sales at Twitter, and Steve Patrizi, LinkedIn’s vice president of marketing solutions, and a returning panelist from last year.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the event:

YouTube:

YouTube has become a powerful hub in the world of Social Media. Every minute, 36 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube. More than 1.5 million business related queries take place on YouTube every single week.

What does this mean for your business?

  • Fast resources. Video not only can bring your product or service to life, it can also be a fast demonstration of what you offer. Make sure to have the right information dispersed on your channel.
  • Visual impact reigns. Make sure you make an impact in your videos. People turn to videos when words alone do not make an impact. make sure you are making the best of your opportunity.
  • Sharing with your audience can reach millions. One video can reach millions in an instant. With site like Twitter and Facebook, your brand can be seen across all channels. Make sure you make your videos relevant in all platforms.

Twitter:

Twitter has transformed itself into the fastest moving form of social media on the internet. At first, it took 3 years and 2 months to reach 1 billion tweets. It now takes 8 days for that to happen.

How can Twitter help your business?

  • Reach. Over 140 million tweets are broadcasted daily. Make sure your brand is including in the conversation.
    New innovations such as Promoted Tweets, Trends and Accounts also help B2B companies connect to larger audiences. These services help you find others in your niche that you can make connections with.
  • Send them to something more. 25-40% of tweets share a link to something else on the web. Use your tweets as a way to broadcast the best and most vital information about your brand.
  • Talk to them. Twitter is a two way conversation. Talk to your customers and be sure you monitor what they are saying about you.

Facebook:

This one seems like a no-brainer, but still many companies are hesitant to join Facebook. If you are afraid your audience is not on Facebook, take a look at these statistics:

  • Amount of users. There are 600 Million people using Facebook. Of the users, 50% log in everyday, on average 55 minutes a day.
  • Referring site capabilities. Daily, posts create 30 billion pieces of content that are spread all over the internet.
  • Competitor Monitoring. More than likely, your competition is on Facebook. Be sure you are tracking what they are saying.

LinkedIn:

The most business savvy of them all, LinkedIn has come into the light as the number one source for recruiting and hiring. Steve Patrizi, LinkedIn’s vice president of marketing, broke down the reason for LinkedIn's popularity into three points:

  • Every individual is a business. With over 1 Million people joining LinkedIn each week, the site is growing to become the best resource for finding and recruiting. With the amount of freelance and personal work opportunities people have, each person becomes their own brand. LinkedIn is a great source for broadcasting your talents.
  • Decision making is harder than ever due to social platforms. Deciding on anything these days has become much more difficult due to social media. LinkedIn provides recommendations for both personal users and brands, allowing people to use sources they trust to help influence their decisions.
  • Professionals look to each other for insight. Having a place to hold all of your professional connections is vital, and LinkedIn allows you to see what all of your connections are up to. LinkedIn Labs also provides insights into what moves your connections have been making lately.

Overall, the event was a huge success, and the panel did a great job of showing why social media is so relevant. Their closing advice to the audience was to stay up on the trends, get involved, and keep the conversation going.

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